Will the world end?

[Kit Fisto]

Haha! Ok! Lol! 

[aeria.]

Greetings from hell!

It's real. I'm dead.

[Kit Fisto]

Greetings from hell!

Well no surprise there. 
Please don't kill me! 

[D4R|< $1D3]

well im still alive & its 2:37 so yeah earth is fine lol

[Anyder]

LoL Kit xd
Aeria, are u in heaven or hell ?

[Gold Man]

I SURVIVED 2012!!!! 

[BlackScorpion]

HO HO HO! It is extremely important the we not write off the risk that some catastrophic species-exterminating event will happen, say, within the next century or so. (Today? Probably not.)

Consider one assumption and two hypotheses:

Assumption: All else being equal, one should reason as though one were selected randomly from some class of observers.

Hypothesis 1: 100 billion humans will have lived

Hypothesis 2: 100 trillion humans will have lived

Your and my birth rank among humans is, roughly, 60-billion. Using the assumption, Hypothesis 1 is vastly more likely than hypothesis 2, and since the human population is growing exponentially, this implies* that the human species will come to an end fairly soon, compared to what we thought before.

This line of reasoning is called the Doomsday Argument, and there are many subtleties that I've glossed over, but you get the idea.




*Or we will turn into superhumans not in our class of observers, or the birth rate will decrease by a ridiculous amount...

Doesn't exponential growth imply that the difference in population between years X and X+1 will be smaller than the difference in population between years X+1 and X+3; that is to say that the population grows at an increasing rate?  For most of human history, population's growth has been limited with capacity concerns (I believe that the birth rate exploded with the industrial revolution, c. 1750): doesn't the Doomsday Argument assume that there are no technological advancements, which could drastically increase the birthrate and very well make H2 a legitimate possibility?

[Sereja]

Congratulations to all survivors! 
It seems, this "End of the World", is temporaly unavailable. Check it out for the new date.

[Anyder]

Congratulations to all survivors! 
It seems, this "End of the World", is temporaly unavailable. Check it out for the new date.

ahahahahah LOL XD

[RepComm]

Greetings from hell!

It's real. I'm dead.

Well, congrats missy. ^^

[Joseph]

Doesn't exponential growth imply that the difference in population between years X and X+1 will be smaller than the difference in population between years X+1 and X+3; that is to say that the population grows at an increasing rate?  For most of human history, population's growth has been limited with capacity concerns (I believe that the birth rate exploded with the industrial revolution, c. 1750): doesn't the Doomsday Argument assume that there are no technological advancements, which could drastically increase the birthrate and very well make H2 a legitimate possibility?

The DA reasoning isn't affected by technological considerations. It's a statement about how you should update your beliefs concerning the longevity of the human species when you incorporate the fact that you are roughly the 60 billionth human.

In fact, perniciously, an accelerating birthrate narrows the time span within which you expect doom to strike.

H2 is certainly a possibility, but it would be rather surprising to be born so early in human history, given the assumption. Nick Bostrom uses the following example: Consider two identical jars in front of you, one of which contains 10 numbered marbles and one of which contains 1 million numbered marbles. If you are given a random marble from one of the jars, and it is number 5, you can be almost certain it was drawn from the 10 marble jar.

(If H1 says that you draw from the 10 marble jar, the probability of drawing 5 is 1/10; if H2 says that you draw from the 1 million marble jar, the probability of getting 5 is 1/1000000. Your belief in H1 is drastically increased to near certainty. The analogy to DA is essentially exact. However, it's important to realize that the exact numbers you get depend on your prior beliefs. For example, if before drawing a marble, you have good reason to believe H2, the degree of shift to H1 will be changed.)

[-=(212) Nixo=-]

So you tried it? It was meant to show all the people that are gullabe and the people that are not

[RepComm]

You cannot accurately rate how fast human (or any other living thing) growth.
You can only know that the creator of all of it said "Be fruitful, and multiply..."
And did not say "Multiply at a rate of X blah blah blah blah...."

[Joseph]

You cannot accurately rate how fast human (or any other living thing) growth.
You can only know that the creator of all of it said "Be fruitful, and multiply..."
And did not say "Multiply at a rate of X blah blah blah blah...."

That's a rather controversial and pessimistic claim! I know that any biologist would beg to differ! The creator hypothesis doesn't appear to put such a limit on human knowledge; perhaps there is some subtlety to the argument that I am missing.

[Helios]

It's debate time. Lolz.